Attaining Honor
by CyberShockwave
Summary: Honor is something one must earn. But when you've done the things I have, even unintentionaly, there is a long line of debt to be paid before any credit comes your way. Kessler thought he knew, thought he knew how fast I would develop, what choices I would make. But when he went back, he changed things in more ways than one. The one thing that didn't, was how I felt about her.
1. An Unforgivable Accident

**-An Unforgivable Accident-**

"It's Parkour."

"Urban exploration."

"Parkour."

"Urban exploration."

"Parkou- you know what? forget it. You call it what you want, but it's parkour. Man, you and your need to make everything you do just a smidgen cooler."

"Ha, says the man who just used the word, 'smidgen.'"

"Hey, my grandfather used that word all the time. So what if it wore off on me a little, I've got his name in mine after all."

"Just how much longer till we get to New Marais, Zeke? No offense, but riding in an old car that hasn't been properly cleaned in three years on our way to a flooded city wasn't what I had in mind for spring break."

"Hey this car is jointly owned by you and me, meaning, the responsibility of cleaning it is just as much on your shoulders as it is on mine. Besides, I thought you were the guy who wanted to get into all this 'urban exploration' jazz."

"It's fun," I replied tersely.

"Well in that case, trust me. I've got friends all over that city tellin' me that the cops are too... busy... to try and attempt a foot pursuit of a fast moving individual such as yourself. Think about it, all the climbing, running and jumping around you can manage without the police on your back. No more running around in the sewers like some kind of rat." I sighed loudly. Sometimes, Zeke could ramble and while it wasn't necessarily annoying, it wasn't always something that needed to be said either.

"Just how much longer."

"Maybe another hour. But that's if there aren't any more of those stupid checkpoints. Why don't you just lay back and go to sleep again. It was a much more pleasant drive when you were doing that."

"Fine, just wake me up when we get there. I don't want to be in this car any longer than I have to."

"Just go to sleep you old woman," Zeke teased as I reluctantly turned my head towards the passenger side window in a vain attempt to try and get some more rest. Despite the little squabble I had with Zeke, I actually liked being awake and talking to him more than I liked drooling on the already ruined upholstery of the seat I was in. We had been on the road for seven hours straight today, stopping only for gas and the occasional pull off to relieve ourselves. With me still being in college and Zeke bouncing around jobs, neither of us had the cash to get down to this city by any other means than taking our jointly owned clunker of a car. Empire City was great for a lot of things, but Zeke had a point in saying the only kind of urban exploration I could do there was in the underground sewers. And that was when college wasn't taking up my time.

"How's that gig with the bakery going?" I asked after a while, turning towards Zeke who still had his aviators fixed to his face like a permanent feature.

"Yeah, it's going good. They said if I keep up the work I'm puttin' in, I might make it to floor sweeper," Zeke answered sarcastically.

"Sorry for asking."

"Nah, it's not your fault man. It's mine. Not smart enough to be like you and go to college."

"It's not all it's cracked up to be," I told my friend as I looked back out the window. "There's so much politics it's not even funny. Sometimes, I think I'm just doing it to appease my mom. She wants me to be a teacher you know."

"A teacher?" Zeke asked disbelievingly. "What would you teach? How to run fast and jump over things? Didn't think you needed to go to college to become a PE teacher."

"Yeah," I said after a moment. "I'm actually thinking about just getting a job and dropping the whole act. Like I said, it's mostly been for my mom." Zeke just grunted before he spoke like a normal human.

"What about that lady friend of yours? What's her name..."

"Trish. And... I don't know. We'll have to talk."

"Look at Mr. MacGrath, talking about talking," my friend said teasingly. I just slugged him in the arm to get him to be quiet for a few seconds. "Hey, how's your bro doin'?"

"Real good. He just finished his state mandated academic testing. Top ninety-ninth percentile. Kid is some kind of genius."

"Dang, man. And your mom wants you to be the teacher? What's he gona' be? An astronaut?"

"Wouldn't put it past him," I replied as I watched more trees covered in Spanish moss pass by.

"Shit..."

"What?" I asked as I turned to look at Zeke. In response, he just nodded his head towards the road in front of us. Water had come up over the paved surface and went on as far as we could see. "Well, the city _is_ flooded," I said as Zeke dropped his head to the steering wheel in defeat.

"I guess we're swimming from here," my friend said as he picked his head back up and unbuckled his seat belt. As he got out of the car, I followed him to the trunk to grab our stuff. We had brought a raft to carry our supplies in but it wasn't going to be holding either of us meaning we would have to wade through the water to get into the city. The disgusting water.

"What are we going to do with the car?" I asked as Zeke set out at pumping the raft full of air.

"Another one of my fiends, Dwight, is going to come pick it up and bring it back to Empire City. He'll come back and get us by the end of the week." I nodded my head as I looked back at the city. The sun was beginning to set and make orange colors to the west. This might be a cool place to visit when the city got fixed up again.

* * *

"What the Shit!"

"Ugh, what now?" I asked, to tired to look up from trudging through sludge. Our week in New Marais had been a blast for the most part, but now that it was over, it was like an accumulated pile of bad karma was being heaped onto us.

"I knew he was a tool! When we get back-"

"Zeke," I interrupted, finally lifting my head. "Whats- where's the car?"

"I'll tell you where it's not! It's not where Dwight was supposed to leave it!"

"Thank you captain obvious." I said as I finally got to dry ground next to my fiend. I pulled our raft up onto land just enough so that it wouldn't float away. "How are we supposed to get home? I've got to be back Monday for classes."

"Yeah, and I've got to be back for my job. You know, the only source of income I have? Shit, man. What are we going to do? There aren't any buses coming near here yet." I began to think of who I could possibly call to come and get us. My family was a no-go. I had told them that this week I had been going on an 'alternate spring break.' It was something the college I was attending really did, but, of course, visiting New Marais to do some urban exploration wasn't one of the alternatives. A person suddenly came to mind. My phone was dead though. In hindsight, expecting the place to have electricity when the streets were covered in three feet of water was a pretty stupid assumption.

"There a pay phone nearby? I think I know someone who can help."

* * *

"Hello?" Good, she answered.

"Trish? Hey, it's me, Cole."

"Oh, hey Cole," she replied, a happy tone behind her greeting. "How's your break been?"

"It been pretty cool, actually. Me and Zeke visited New Marais."

"New Marais? I thought that place was flooded." I cleared my throat before I explained.

"It is, which is one of the reasons why we visited." There was a small pause as Trish thought about what I meant.

"You were doing that, what was it, urban exploration stuff, weren't you." I couldn't help but smile at how she called it urban exploration. I had a supporter on that front, at least.

"Maybe, but that's not exactly the reason I called."

"Did Zeke hurt himself? God, I told you not to let him jump around with you. He isn't as..."

"Slim? Fit? Good looking?" I suggested.

"Nimble," Trish said flatly.

"Well, he didn't hurt himself and I'm fine too, actually."

"Oh, okay. So, um, why are you calling then?"

"Well, we came in our car and one of Zeke's pals was supposed to come and pick it up and then come back for us to get back ourselves."

"Zeke's pals? ...The car is missing, isn't it." She predicted almost instantly. It wasn't even a question.

"Yes."

"Zeke sure knows how to pick 'em."

"Yeah..."

"So I'm guessing you'd like a ride."

"If it's not to much of a hass-" before I could say more, Trish interrupted.

"It's not a problem." But then she quickly added, "But you're going to be helping me pay for gas." I smiled. Couldn't let herself seem to eager.

"Not a problem," I said back, not being able to keep the smile of my face.

"Alright, I'll try and get down there as fast as legally possible. We've got classes Monday and I don't want to be late for them."

"Okay, see you in a bit then."

"Yeah, see ya." There was a weird awkward silence for a half second before my toll for the phone expired.

"Hey? They coming?" Zeke yelled from the outside of the phone booth. I hung up the phone and gave him a thumbs up sign. "Great! How long?"

"She said that she'd try to be here as fast as legally possible."

"She? Did you call your lady friend?"

"Her name is Trish, Zeke," I said as I got out of the phone booth. "And yes, I did."

"That chick's a keeper then, helping out your sorry ass."

"It's your fault we're in this mess," I reminded him.

"I can't help it that all my friends save one turn shady on my at the least convenient times."

"Yeah, totally not your fault."

"Whatever man. So what do we do now?"

"Got some beers left in the cooler?" Zeke just cleared his throat. "Unbelievable," I muttered, but really, it was quite believable. "Looks like we're just going to be sitting and waiting."

"Where should we do that? She going to be able to find us out here in the boonies?"

"Yeah," I said, realizing Zeke had a point. "Let's head up the road to the first exit with 'New Marais' on it. She'll be able to see us from there."

"What about all our stuff? You want to drag that boat all the way to that sign?"

"What do we have on it that's worth bringing? Can't we just leave it behind?"

"Point taken. Okay, let's get to that sign."

Sleep can only delay boredom for so long. Ten hours if your pushing it to be exact. We still had about another nine hours to go. So we told stories. Lots of stories. Of course, Zeke had to bring up the one with the stupid truck.

"What had you been doing anyways?" he asked.

"What are you talking about?"

"When you got ran over by that truck. What were you doing?"

"I wasn't trying to get run over by a truck, that's for sure."

"Come on man."

"To be honest, I wasn't doing anything important. Just crossing the street. It's funny, actually. I saw that truck and swore I had enough time to cross before it came. But as soon as I stepped into that street, it's like he sped up. I barely remember it, in fact, it might just be a dream, but I could've swore the guy got out and looked me over maybe even took some of my blood, before he got back into his truck and drove off."

"Shit man, did you tell the cops?"

"No, like I said, I'm not even sure it happened."

"Weird guy if it did."

"Yeah..." Headlights engulfing us in the late evening of the Saturday night broke our conversation.

"You boys need a lift?" Trish asked as she pulled up and leaned out her window.

"Sweet, our ride is here!" Zeke said as he jumped up and dusted himself off. "With a sweet car too," He said as he looked more closely at the car. Trish looked at her own vehicle with a scrutinizing face, trying to see what Zeke saw.

"What do you mean?" she asked finally.

"When you own a clunker like the one Cole and I did, any car with more paint than rust is a sweet car."

"Oh," Trish said. "Speaking of Cole," she said as she searched inside her car to find a wad of paper. "Gas receipts." I gave a light groan but got into the passenger seat all the same. Zeke gladly took the back row and sprawled out, glad to have something soft to sit on that wasn't the ground. Trish gave me an look like she was expecting something.

"What?" I asked, not having any clue what she could be thinking.

"I really hope that what you have on isn't the only articles of clothing you brought on this trip."

"No, of course they aren't."

"Then where's the rest of your stuff? I cleaned out the trunk and everything."

"We didn't want to carry it, so we left it behind. Everything we didn't grab can be replaced."

"But I cleaned the trunk," she moaned as she began to get ready to drive off. "Oh, well. It had to be done sometime..."

"Thanks again for doing this," I told her as we got back onto the freeway.

"It wasn't a problem," she said as she took her hand off the shifting stick and rested it on my hand for a moment. We shared a glance that said more than what we could say for the rest of the car ride before Zeke cleared his throat.

"Just remember that the back seat is occupied. No shenanigans tonight." We immediately tore our gazes from each other in embarrassment and Trish pulled her hand away to shift up a gear. I looked out my window to distract myself for at least a portion of the long trip ahead but before I could lose myself in the passing mile markers, I felt Trish put her hand back onto mine. I sneaked a glance back at her and saw a discrete smile on her face. Covert enjoyment.

It didn't take long for Zeke to fall asleep, it never does. I heard his snores before I did a visual confirmation and once I had that, I knew I had my opportunity.

"So," I began, trying to get a conversation going without knowing how to really begin one on the topic I wanted to discus.

"So," Trish repeated, her discrete smile she had maintained for half an hour growing larger.

"I need to talk to you. About something important."

"Oh," she said, her smile faltering.

"It's about me. And college. And you."

"In that order?"

"It's about mecollegeyou," I said, trying to make a point but making Trish laugh a little instead.

"Okay, I think I get it. They're interrelated."

"Yeah." Trish took a deep breath through her nose, never taking her eyes off the road. She was focused like that.

"Alright, lay it on me." Now it was my turn to breath deeply.

"I know you've got a reason to go to college, a damn good one at that," I began. "I think it's great you're trying to get into the health care field and do some good. But I've never really had a purpose like that for going to college." For a second, the rarest event happened. Trish took her eyes off the road to glance at me.

"What do you mean?" Immediately, her eyes flicked back to the dark road.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I went. I mean, I met you, and I've learned a lot of stuff, but, I guess I don't really have that reason for continuing with it like you do. I think I'm going to dis-enroll and get a job in Empire City. I mean, I started because other people wanted me to and that just isn't enough for me to keep going through with it." Trish nodded her head but remained quiet for a couple of moments. I felt a growing pit in my stomach. I knew Trish was a rational person and right now she was just processing everything I had told her. But part of me was still scared of how she was going to react. Finally she spoke up.

"Well, that was the you and the college part. What's the part about me?" Her voice was steady and I couldn't see or hear any kind of emotions playing through her. Either she was holding them back really well or she didn't have any on the subject. I didn't know which was better.

"I still want to continue what we have. Like I said, I'd find something to do in Empire, and I totally support you and your choice to keep on going at your degree. But, I'd also understand and respect your choice if you-"

"I'd like to keep it going too," Trish said quickly before I could finish, hope being the first emotion I could discern from her in the last couple of minutes. "Our relationship, that is. I... I can see and understand where this is coming from. You should do what makes you happy." Her hand that had stayed connected to mine the whole conversation squeezed a little as she broke her starring contest with the road again to look at me with a mischievous smile for a brief moment as she added, "As long as I'm involved, that is." I returned the smile as she glued her eyes back to the road.

"Oh, You're involved alright," I told her, watching her cheeks flush a little as she remained focused on the road. As her natural color came back a thoughtful look came upon her face.

"What about your parents? Have you talked about this with them?" I sighed. Of course my girlfriend would understand my decision to forge my own path, but the people who raised me and knew me for the majority of my life? Nope. "Cole, you should tell them. At least let them find it out from you. They might be mad at first, but they care about you, and people who care about you, they just want you to be happy in the end," she said as she gave another squeeze to my hand.

"I guess," I said dejectedly. Of course she was right, I just didn't feel like having the conversation with my mom in particular. "You've kind of ruined this for me," I told Trish after a while.

"What? How? Ruined what?"

"You're all understanding and supportive and everything and now when I go to tell them, I'm not going to have a good baseline to brace myself with."

"Oh, sorry, I guess." We were quiet a bit longer before she spoke up again. "Do you want me to try and give you that baseline?"

"Huh?"

"I can pretend to be all mad and angry and stuff to prepare you," she said with a goofy smile. Or maybe it was a normal one. It just looked goofy because her eyes still weren't meting mine.

"Um, sure, I guess," I replied. Trish just nodded and shook her head slightly, as if she were an actress preparing for a scene in a movie.

"Okay. Now, break the news to me again."

"Um... okay," I said, slightly scared of what to expect. If she was going to try and emulate one of my mothers responses, I wasn't sure I wanted to go through with this. Her knowledge base of my mother went only as far as I had enlightened her and I seemed to have a problem only telling her about the bad parts of my parents' personalities. "Trish," I began slowly, not even remembering how I had delivered my thoughts to her the first time.

"Yes, Cole, dearest? What is it? Is there something you would like to tell me? Something you would like to get off your chest?" Under normal circumstances, the way she was talking would've had me hunched over and bursting my gut with laughter. But as it was, I was finding myself a little scared.

"I have something to tell you about College. And You. And me." Had that been the order I used the first time?

"Oh?" she said in fake surprise.

"I'm not going to go back next semester. I've thought-"

"What? But don't you care for me? Why would you leave me like this? I thought we were doing so good, I mean, I thought we had something special between us. Is it because you feel less intelligent than me? I'm sorry if my superior intellect makes you feel inadequate. I promise to start using words that you can understand better."

"Okay, I don't think this is helping," I said dejectedly.

"Yeah," Trish agreed, laughing a bit. We settled down and sat in amicable silence for a while. "So how soon would you do it?"

"Get out? I don't know. I don't want to waste anymore time doing something that I'm not going to finish." Trish nodded her head in agreement. "I should probably get some jobs lined up first, that way I don't become a leach on society or something."

"Sounds good, I don't know if I could be with a leach. You thinking of anything in particular?"

"Nah, not really. I'd really like to do something thats fluid and dynamic, but when it comes down to it, anything paying a dime more than minimum wage will do it."

"Wow, you go cheap."

"How do you think you got me?" I asked. Trish just made a disgusted sound and moved her hand from mine to punch me before taking my hand again, showing me she knew it had been a well executed joke. We were quiet for a long time before I noticed Trish getting antsy. "You okay?" I asked, slightly concerned.

"Yeah, just real sleepy. Trying to stay awake is hard when you haven't slept real good in a while."

"Go ahead and pull over. I'll drive for a while and you can get some sleep."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, Zeke and I got more than enough sleep while we were waiting for you. Maybe not the most comfortable sleep, but some shut eye non the less." Trish found a spot to pull off and undid her seatbelt before getting out her door. I got out and switched positions. After we settled into our new spots, I got back on the road and we resumed our trip.

"Thanks," Trish said as she put the seat back a little to be more comfortable.

"Like I said," I began. "I've slept so-"

"No, not for that, for telling me. About your plans and everything. I'm... I'm glad you still want us to see each other."

"I'm glad too," I replied softly as Trish fell to sleep.

* * *

"You what?!" Yeah. Trish definitively ruined my baseline.

"Mom, stop freaking out."

"I'm not freaking out! I'm having a rational reaction to my son telling me he's quiting college!"

"Look, it's just never been something I've really wanted to do for me. It's always felt like I had to go because it's what you wanted-"

"Because you need it! What are you going to do for the rest of your life? Deliver newspaper? I want you to be happy!"

"And what if I'm happy delivering newspaper?"

"Don't be an idiot, Cole! Think about your future!"

"Can I talk to dad?"

"What- Why? Why won't you talk to me!"

"I have been mom. For the last ten minutes. This is going nowhere with you. I want to talk to dad before I can't pay the phone bill." She was quiet for a moment, only her heated breath letting me know she was still on the line. Then a large sigh followed by what sounded like the phone being thrust to my dad.

"Well, whatever this is, it's got her in a mood," my dad said quietly before my mom was out of range. "What's this about?"

"I'm not going to college next semester. Or ever, really." There was a pause on the line before my dad spoke up again.

"Are you sure? You've thought about this?"

"Yeah. I'm going to find a job to do here in the city until Trish finishes up her schooling-"

"So you're still going to be with Trish? Does she know?"

"Yeah, she knows, and we're still together. She understands and just wants me to be happy." There was another sigh on the phone, but this one sounded like some kind of relief.

"I just want what's best for you, Cole," my dad began. "And that woman's the best thing you've managed to do. You go and do whatever you want, just don't lose her, understand?"

"Yeah," I replied, surprised at the contrasting reactions I was getting from my parents.

"Let me smooth things over with your mom. She's not going to be happy for a little while, and make no mistake, I'm not bursting with rainbow's either, but your our son and despite how it may seem right now, we just want you to be happy."

"I know dad. Thanks."

"Yeah. So, what are you going to do now?"

"I've got some jobs lined up. Going to see if anything pulls through, but until then, stick it out in my classes."

"Okay. I'll talk to you soon, Cole."

"Yeah, same here."

"Alright, bye."

"Bye." I sighed and ended the call. I walked from the kitchen to where Trish was to bug her a little more before I called it a night.

"See, I told you. They care about you and just want you to be happy," Trish said from her apartment's living room as I walked in. She was surrounded by books that I had thought she was studying, but her comment told me she had done her fair amount of eavesdropping too. I flushed a little when I realized that she probably heard me and my father discussing our relationship. Well, that was probably my fault for deciding to call while I was over.

"How much-"

"Enough to know that I'm the 'best thing you've managed to do,'" she said with a smirk as she looked up from some sort of anatomy book. I began to turn even more red as she just looked at me.

"Yes, well, I see you're trying to study hard and my conversations are probably just distracting you so I think I'll leave now. Thanks for having me over for take out, next time we'll have it at my place." Trish just laughed as I hastily made my way out of the apartment.

* * *

 **Four Years Later**

* * *

"It's going to happen soon," I told Zeke as we walked towards his house. I was carrying a six pack of cold ones and he was... carrying nothing, of course, but, as he put it, he needed his hands to do the things I wouldn't be able to do with mine.

"Yeah, and I'm going to grow a third eye soon, too. Man, until I see something physical, it's just some talk," Zeke said as he opened the door to his place.

"I'm serious! I've been saving up the money for said physical proof and I'm almost there too."

"Well, tell me when you've got it," Zeke said as he lead the way to his apartment. "Until then, it's still just some talk." I was about to enter the door to Zeke's apartment when my phone began to go off.

"Hold on a sec, it's my boss," I said as I put the beer down.

"I though you had the day off?"

"So did I," I responded quietly before I accepted the call. "Hello?"

"Hey, MacGrath, how would you feel about a special delivery?"

"Vince, you know it's my day off."

"I know that, but there's some dude requesting you specifically. Says it's one package and that he'll pay you right for doing it today." I sighed to let my boss know I wasn't liking the situation but asked my next question regardless.

"Where's it got to go?"

"Guy says he needs it on the intersection of 19th and Sloat. Says there'll be someone there waiting for it."

"19th and Sloat? That's not far." I glanced over at Zeke who still had his shades on even inside. The man had an attachment for sure. Zeke just sighed at my glance.

"I get it, you're saving up. Just make sure to get back here and enjoy yourself before Trish's shift gets done."

"Thanks man," I told Zeke before speaking back into the phone. "Tell him I'll do it."

"Great," Vince said. "I've already got the package here in the office. See you in a bit." Once I made sure the conversation was done I bowed out of Zeke's place and jogged over to the office.

* * *

"I don't know what you mean, I didn't ask for a package," the woman I was about to give the parcel to said.

"Um..." But the woman just scoffed and walked back into her apartment. "Dammit," I muttered. I hated people who thought this was funny. There was probably just a rock in the stupid box too. I was about to toss the thing into a nearby trash can before my phone began to ring again. I didn't recognize the number. "Who is this?" I asked as I received the call.

"Open the package," was the only thing a grizzled voice told me in return.

"Oh, so your the one who gave me the bull-shit delivery job," I began.

"I'll give you another 500 dollars for opening the package right now." That got me to stop and think. I almost had enough for a ring. With what this guy had already paid me, an extra 500 would mean I could go and get the thing tonight.

"Alright, but on one condition, you tell no one I opened it. I don't want people to go and start thinking I make a habit of opening-" I stopped as I looked inside the box. Some kind of weird blue orb with handles and circuitry was just sitting there, pulsating. "What the hell-" The pulsating climaxed into a white light that became all consuming just before I lost all sense of reality.

 **AN: Let me know what you think! Is it too jumpy? Are the character representations okay? I hope you've enjoyed the first chapter of my inFAMOUS fanfiction. And hope to see you next update! BE AWESOME!**


	2. Closing the Circuit

**-Closing the Circuit-**

Screaming. That was all there was. Panicked, short screams, long, drawn-out screams, screams of the young, the old, men, women; inhuman screams. That was all I could grasp.

"Activation plus six minutes. Pulse is 45, respiration 10," a ragged, yet somehow familiar voice began, pulling me from the deepest dark I've ever known. It wasn't enough to wake me completely, but enough to let me know I was alive. The next sentence the strange voice mumbled though, that was enough to make me fight the rest of the way back to reality. "Looking good, Cole."

The first thing I felt was a cold breeze blowing over me, immediately letting me know that a lot of my clothing was now either burnt or torn. The first smell I got let me know it was probably burned. Then I opened my eyes. That was when I felt all the pain, all in that one moment. My skin itched like something terrible but every movement I made felt like I was ripping any of the skin I still had. I breathed in suddenly in surprise and shock and nearly coughed on the ash that was still swirling around in the air. A distant thudding continued to grow and I started to move to get up and identify the source.

"The hell happened?" I asked myself as I began to pick myself up from, what I now realized to be, an island of road surrounded by a large and still smoldering crater of red and black seared earth. The heat I could feel radiating around me caused me to put my hands up to try and defend my face from waves of infrared energy. "Oh, God," I muttered as I finally got a good look at my surroundings. I was at the epicenter of a crater that had at least a thousand yard radius. Buildings outside the completely desolate ring were either crumbled to uninhabitable piles of rubble or on their way there. The thumping I had been hearing earlier finally came to a climax and maintained prominent behind me. I turned around to find a black helicopter hovering near the L train tracks.

"There's someone alive down there!" a man with a frightened voice said over a PA system on board the helicopter. "Hey, wave up if you can hear me," the man in the airborne vehicle said. I weakly put up my arm to signify my hearing still worked. "If you can walk, get out of there. Head for the bridge." I weakly nodded my head at the person in the helicopter, glad I could in fact walk. "Hey, you! In the garage!" the helicopter suddenly said in a somewhat angry but concerned voice. "Get the hell out of there! The whole thing is coming down!" I glanced in the direction the helicopter was now flying towards and saw a dark silhouette of a man in one of the flashes of arcing electricity in the building. I suddenly felt very motivated to get out of this hellish wasteland. I began to hobble my way down from my island of asphalt and made my way across the crater on ground that looked cool enough for me to walk on without melting my shoes.

"Cole! Cole, man, you there? C'mon, man, pick up!" a voice crackled through my phone.

"Zeke?" I asked, recognizing the voice enough to identify it as my best friend. "What the hell is going on? I thing there was an explosion," I told my friend. What else could explain the carnage?

"NO SHIT THERE WAS AN EXPLOSION!" my friend replied. Yeah. This was Zeke alright. And he had a point. It was a dumb statement on my part. "Television says terrorists are blowing stuff up all over the city. Meet me at the Fremont Bridge. We'll get Trish and find someplace to hunker down."

"I'll see you there," I told my friend as I came across a sketchy scene. I was going to have to go through the garage that the helicopter had warned was coming down as it was the only path that wouldn't melt me into a puddle. But to even get into the death trap, I had to cross a death trap. A car lay bridging a gap of smoldering debris and looked like it wouldn't stand up to a safety inspection. But I really didn't have much of a choice if I was going to be getting out of here. I took a couple of paces back getting ready for what I knew was going to hurt. I had just been at the epicenter of an explosion and here I was about to run over a precarious car with multiple third degree burns. Trish would kill me if she knew what I was going to do. I huffed three times in preparation and began my sprint. The tearing of scabs that were just beginning to form made me wince but I couldn't slow down now, I was past no return. I ran across the car and heard it groan and squeak in protest as I sprinted across it's top, but I got across. Then I saw what I should've seen before my little urban exploration session.

"UGH!" I yelled out as blue light arced at me and enveloped my body. However, almost as soon as it began, I noticed something wasn't right. I haven't been electrocuted before, it's not something I go looking to do on a regular basis, but I was sure it was supposed to be more... Painful. If anything, the arcing light was making me feel more... Healthy? The built up electricity quickly stopped arcing to me as it left my body I looked myself over. "What the hell," I said to myself in disbelief. Strange, I could've swore I had at least twice as many burns before the shock. "I should be dead," I realized. Or at least convulsing on the floor. Deciding I didn't want to stick around and experiment in a building that was supposed to be coming down, hurried past the substation that had attacked me.

I made my was to another part of the garage, but not without incident. I had to balance my way across a fallen support pillar that was at least thirty feet up in the air. I was really glad Trish wasn't with me in more ways than one. Just as I was about the exit the building though, another freak accident happened. An exposed wire suddenly arced to me again, sending pulsing waves of electricity through my body. But instead my my muscles convulsing like I was pretty sure they should've been, I was able to move around with my own free will. The arcing from the cable stopped soon enough, but then the really weird shit happened.

I was looking at my hand when suddenly I spurted electricity from it just like the cable had. Then it became an uncontrollable as the same thing began happening with my other hand as I panicked, it got worse until huge pillars of lightning were coming from my hands and surrounding various metal items still in the parking garage. Primarily, cars. One of them exploded and a section of ceiling above it collapsed, making a way out of the garage that was admittedly more convenient than the route I had been looking at before. I quickly got out of the garage and on to a street that would lead to the Fremont bridge.

"If you're able to walk, please evacuate across the bridge to the Neon. Remain calm, emergency personnel are en route," the helicopter that had found me before announced. I immediately thought of Trish and how all this would be making her see a lot of work for the next couple of days. Then I saw an ambulance with multiple bodies covered by sheets nearby. People had died. I mean, I kinda knew they would, but seeing it was something else. I continued to walk by, not wanting to get caught up in things that would make me sad. There were cop cars everywhere on his side of the bridge. Some of the cops nodded nervously to me, knowing me personally from packages I had delivered to them on occasion. They were all obviously on the look out for these supposed terrorists Zeke had told me about. As I began to walk across the bridge, a sudden tingling sensation began to build up near my spine, hurting in that ticklish sort of way.

"Cole! Over here man! We gotta go!" Zeke yelled out from across the bridge. Panic began to build in me as the tingling sensation continued to grow. What was happening? Then the real stuff came. Lighting bolts from the sky blasted down and instantly ablated concrete around me, sending chunks and chips of the rocky material flying like bullets. Some of the cop cars began to blow up as they took direct hits from the bolts. I began to run in fear of getting struck only to find the bolts chasing me across. I ran faster than I knew I could, the wind wiping at open wounds and closing ones alike making me cringe at the pain. It was starting to become to much for me to handle. The pain, the panic, I lost consciousness for the second time that day as I barely heard Trish cry out my name.

 **Mm-mM**

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

The steady, monotonous tone was what told me there was still an outside world.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

The tempo it began to increase at told me that I was still alive. The tingling in my forearms though...

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

That told me something was wrong.

I sprung up from my bed in panic glancing around the room to see a just as startled Trish and Zeke starring at me. At my arms. I looked down and saw the cause for concern as well. My arms were now enveloped in crackling electricity, fading in and out with various intensities. As my brain began to kick in more, the light only got brighter, seeming to increase with my panic. As the freaky display continued, I began to feel more and more... Drained, and slipped back to the dark.

 **Mm-mM**

When I woke up this time, the room was quiet. I inhaled sharply and looked around, wanting to see who was tormenting me with all this damned electricity. My movement must've startled Zeke enough for him to wake up and push his magazine off his chest.

"Hey, you good?" he asked, looking a little scared of me.

"What's going on," I rasped, my voice sounding dry from disuse and lack of water.

"We've got no idea, man," Zeke responded truthfully. I looked around the room again.

"Where's Trish?" I asked, concerned for my girlfriend.

"Around," Zeke responded as he peered at me from behind his shades. "You sure you're good?" he asked again.

"Yeah, why wouldn't I be? Did that electric stuff stop happening? Did they catch the terrorists?" Zeke just continued to peer at me from behind his shades, occasionally flicking his eyes down to my hands. "What?" I asked, annoyed at his stranger-than-usual behavior.

"Well," Zeke began obviously startled out of whatever he was doing by my harsh voice. "It's just a theory right now," Zeke began cryptically, busing himself with the magazine he had a few moments ago. "But, well, Trish and I think the electricity came from you." For a moment, I just stared at him expecting to pull one of his 'gotch ya's on me. When it didn't come, I began to freak out just a bit.

"You're kidding, right? Zeke, in case you forgot, people don't shoot electricity from their hands. At least, real people don't. I think you've been reading to many of those damn comics," I responded, gesturing to his magazine. There had to be a reasonable explanation for all this shit. Where was Trish? She was the most educated out of the three of us and wouldn't be in as much of a joking mood. Then again, Zeke didn't have that tell tale sign of pranking either.

"Hey," Zeke said a little defensively, some bark coming into his voice. "Don't get snappy at me! I helped your sorry ass back here after you passed out. I'm just trying to help you man." Zeke cooled down and said in a much more meaningful voice, "We're all just trying to help you." Then the woman I had been wanting to see walked into the room. At first her face was overcome with a bright smile, then trepidation.

"Is he good?" she asked Zeke, taking glances at me and my hands as Zeke had been doing a couple of moments ago.

"Yeah, just bitchy," the man replied with a faint smile.

"What's going on babe?" I asked my girlfriend, wanting to here a logical voice state it's opinion. She walked over to the other side of my bed where a few medical instruments were. They weren't hooked up to me though and just stood there.

"Cole," she began, glancing at me with a slight smile breaking through her worry. "I'm going to try and hook these up to you, okay? Just... I don't know, stay calm?" I gave her the best confused look I could give. Sure, I had hardly ever been in a hospital, and when I had, I was usually just visiting someone. But being hooked up to life monitor equipment wasn't on my list of 'scary things'.

"Can you move okay?" Trish asked, ignoring my confounded look. I decided to drop the stare I was giving her and moved my arms around experimentally.

"Yeah," I replied after a couple of movements.

"Okay, go a head and let me see your chest. I need to put some bio-gel on it for the sensors." I began to comply but as I removed my shirt, Trish gave a slight gasp.

"What?" I said with a slight chuckle. "Ain't nothing you haven't seen," I finished with a sly smile. Trish however just continued to stare at me.

"Shit dude," Zeke said beside me. I decided to see what the big deal was and actually looked down at myself. I was tremendously disappointed.

"There's nothing there," I said to both of them. "What are you staring at?"

"Cole," Trish began slowly, finally looking back up at my face, "when we brought you in, you had third degree burns all over your body. _Everywhere_. Some parts of you didn't even have skin. It was a miracle you made it as far as you did." I looked into her face, trying to see the twinkle she always had when she was pulling my leg. It wasn't there. I looked down at my stomach and chest again. Not even a scratch. Even the sparse hair I had grew back. Hell, even the scar I had got back in sixth grade was gone. I reached out and touched where it should've been. Real, warm skin. What the hell...

"What's going on?" I asked, hoping anyone in the room would give at least an answer. It didn't even have to be the correct one, just one that made sense, that could explain this.

"I think you should tell him," Zeke finally said.

"Tell me what?" I asked frantically.

"But I'm not even sure-"

"Tell me what?!" I asked again, tired of not getting an answer. Trish looked down at me for a moment and then grabbed a squirt bottle of something. One she got a bit in her hands, she rubbed down my chest with it. Under other circumstances, I might've enjoyed this, maybe have a little fun with my girlfriend. But right now, that was the furthest thing from my mind.

"Cole, remember what I said," Trish said once she finished with the gel. She grabbed the contacts for the heart rate monitor and looked right into my eyes before she spoke again. "Relax."

I focused inwards and tried to calm down, despite all the uncertainty that was swirling around me. I slowed my breathing and after a few seconds nodded my head. Taking it as the sign to go, Trish lowered the contacts onto me. Immediately, the machine sprung to life.

"What the..." Trish said, spinning around on the machine, studding all the switches and knobs on it.

"What?" I asked, concerned that I had done something wrong.

"I didn't even turn it on yet," she replied. A second later, she lifted up an unplugged cord. The beeping on the machine began to climb faster and faster. "Cole," Trish said, trying to distract me from the cable she just dropped. "Cole, try and relax, okay?" But I couldn't. Suddenly, the screen on the machine began to fuzz up. That freaked me out even more. Then it happened. A single spark arched from my chest to the contact attached to it.

"Hey man," Zeke said now, sounding more than scared. "Just try and cool down, okay? No one's trying to hurt you." Watching everything was too much. So I closed my eyes and tried to focus inward again. But this time, I felt something completely different. The best way to explain it was a pull. I felt... something... jumping from different areas of my body towards a point on my chest. The more I focused on the feeling, the less jumpy it felt and turned into more of a controlled... flow?

"Good, Cole, you're doing great. Just... keep doing whatever it is you're doing," Trish encouraged, pulling my attention outward again. I then heard the heart rate monitor. It was beeping at a normal pace again, though it still wasn't plugged in. I focused back into myself. I tried to stop the tugging feeling and after a moment, all I felt was a distant pull. And then I heard nothing. No beeping, just the baited breath of my girlfriend and best friend beside me. I opened my eyes to a blank monitor.

"You good, man?" Zeke asked after a moment.

"What's going on?" I asked, ignoring the question not to be rude, but because I was starting to get frustrated with being in the dark. Trish thankfully pulled the contacts off my chest and I registered an end to the distant pulling sensation.

"I've got a theory," Trish began a confusing plethora of tones behind her voice. "It's... it's out there, but as far as I can tell, it's the closest thing to an answer we're going to get for a while."

"Let's hear it," I said anxiously. Trish nodded solemnly and took a seat to my right, opposite Zeke.

"I'm not sure how," she began looking again at my hand before quickly coming back to my face. "But I think the explosion somehow... I don't know... triggered something? You see, all of us send signals through our body via neural pathways that use minuscule amounts of electricity. My theory is that you're body is now, for some bizarre reason, producing way to much electricity."

"So... it's natural?" I asked skeptically.

"No," Trish quickly said. "It's very much unnatural." She then looked me over. "Cole, it takes a lot of energy to run a healthy human body. Three meals a day for most people. To be producing that much extra electric charge... Are you, like... I don't know, super hungry or anything?"

"Wait, what? Where did that-"

"Just... humor me. Are you feeling any hungrier than normal?" After a moment of thinking on, I actually felt unnaturally... un-hungry. I knew I wasn't full, and I could probably eat something, but I just wasn't hungry at all.

"Actually, I feel the opposite of hungry," I admitted to her to which she quirked an eyebrow. "I mean, I know I could eat if I was given food, but, I just don't feel hungry. At all. Not even a tiny bit."

"Maybe it's like a battery?" Zeke offered from his side of the bed, causing the two of us to look at him.

"What do you mean, 'like a battery,'" Trish asked.

"Maybe he stores electricity from other sources," Zeke clarified, "like a battery."

"Okay," Trish began, rolling her eyes. "Even if he was 'like a battery' and took electricity from other sources, it would have to be extremely small amounts over a long period of time in order for him to still be alive, and I haven't been giving him any electricity and I'm pretty sure you've got enough common sense that you haven been zapping him either so-"

"Actually," I interrupted, stopping Trish's rant short of completion. "On my way back to the bridge from the explosion, I got electrocuted. Twice." Trish looked at me for a moment again before trying to speak again.

"Even still, a couple of small shocks still aren't enough to account for-"

"They weren't small," I interrupted again. "One was a small sub station and another was an exposed power cable. Both were at least a couple seconds long." That got Trish to drop her jaw.

"But... that's not... you'd be..."

"Trish, apparently I've got large amounts of electricity just floating around in here," I began, gesturing to my chest. "Something tells me conventional thinking is out the window."

"So he's like a battery," Zeke said, the smallest amount of excitement in his voice.

"Trish," I said, ignoring my friend for a moment and reaching out to take a hold of Trish's hand. When I made contact, she jumped a little and I withdrew my hand. "Sorry," I said quickly. "Did I-"

"No, no. I just... you surprised me."

"I tried to touch you a couple days ago during one of your... episodes," Zeke began. "You kind of... well..."

"Sorry Zeke," I told my friend.

"Naw, it nothing," Zeke said, waving me off. "Now I got braggin' rights that I was the first guy to get zapped by you. And lived!" I smiled a bit, but stopped when Trish took my hand again.

"So... you can control it?" Trish said looking between me and my hand.

"I guess," I began. "It's really hard to focus on it, but, I bet I can get better at it with some practice.

"I suppose," she said looking back into my eyes. There was then a knock on the door.

"Trish?" another nurse said as she stepped through the door. "Someone in room 219 needs some help and we're swamped. Can you help out?"

"Yeah, be a second Beth," Trish said from beside me.

"'Kay," the other woman said nodding her head and stepping out.

"I've got to get back out there," Trish told me. "I'm off in three hours. I'll be able to make sure you're okay to get out of here then. Just, don't do anything crazy while I'm gone. That goes for you too, Zeke. No experiments."

"Fine, fine," Zeke said from beside me. I glanced over at him to see him screwing a light bulb back into a lamp.

"Love you," I called after her as she left. She stopped in the door way and gave me a full smile for the first time in what felt like years.

"Love you too," she replied as she stepped out the door. As soon as the door was shut, Zeke got back up and began fiddling with the bulb again.

Mm-mM

I had just finished getting the food down for everyone when they showed up.

While I was still in bed, Zeke had told me about how sideways the world had gone while I was out. Quarantines, gangs going out of control, and cops on the run. But I wasn't prepared for, 'gangs going out of control' meaning, 'gangs have AK-47's and inhuman behavior'. I'd have to have a talk with Zeke about this, but right now, I needed to keep these thugs away from the food. Some of these people looked worse than those children on humanitarian commercials. They needed the food more than some bozo with a gun.

Without a second thought, I jumped from my perch, a fall that would've killed anyone else, but, as I was finding out, only served to give me an adrenalin rush. As soon as I landed, I decided to put my new found... talents?... to the test. I focused on the strange pulsating feeling that originated from my gut and channeled the feeling to my hand, focusing on where I wanted that energy to go. I still had yet to get used to the feeling of that surge of power leaving my hand and arcing to the thug that was charging me. As it was, I wasn't all that used to the feeling and for a brief moment, stared at my hand after the gun wielding gang member fell to the ground, incapacitated. That was my first mistake of the day.

A searing pain made itself known in my left thigh, almost crippling me with pain as I grabbed at the wound. When I pulled my hand away, there was blood, but no nearly as much as I expected. A few more bullets grazed by me, pulling me out of my reflective thinking. I dove for one of the stone pillars in the park and hid behind it, bullets pelting surfaces around me. When there was a momentary break, I decided to take my chance and try to take out the other three thugs that remained. I took a deep breath and focused.

When I popped up from my cover, two things happened. The first and most obvious was that the thugs who had stopped firing began to take aim to fire again. The second and more confusing event was the speed at witch they were going about this process. Their guns were being raised ridiculously slowly, their shrouded faces turning to me in a similar manner. I looked around for Zeke who had been giving me some suppressing fire with his six shooter, but when I finally spotted him, he also was moving at a snails pace. Deciding to take advantage of whatever was going on, I raised my arm and took aim at the three hooded figures, aiming for the head for a quick put down. Before a single shot could be fired, I had taken down all three of the gun wielding gang members.

"Shit, man," Zeke said, realizing what just happened. "How'd you do that?"

"I don't know," I said, looking down at my hands. "I just... focused, I guess."

"Dang. We'll have to practice that one." Zeke then took a look at the crates we had been defending. "Let's get some grub before it's all gone."

"Yeah," I said, finally fixing my eyes on something other than my hands while Zeke pried at the boxes like a monkey after a banana. "But only take what we need, there's some people here that don't look to good." With a grunt of victory, Zeke finally got the lid off his crate, but his primal sounds of victory turned into ones of disappointment.

"Those idiots dropped canned prunes! What are we supposed to do with these? Give them to the old folks home?"

"That's not a bad idea," Trish said, making her debut. I sent her a smile and wave which she was quick to return. "Their supplies are running pretty low. Not many people are thinking about that demographic at the moment and they aren't necessarily high on some people's priority list."

"Shit," Zeke whispered to me as Trish helped to hand out food to people who were starting to come back now that the cost was clear of the thugs. "I don't want to sound like an ass, but your girlfriend is going to give out all the food and forget about us." I just smiled a bit and pulled a couple of cans of beans Trish had handed to me before she had started handing out food. "Shit," Zeke said as he took one of the cans. "Now I am an ass."

"Since when have you not been one?" I asked jokingly as Trish finished handing out the last of the cans. Unfortunately, it looked like there were still a lot of people who wouldn't be getting something. I noticed one kid who was alone and didn't get a thing. Sighing, I caught his attention and threw him my can of beans. I hadn't been that hungry since the... incident anyways. Suddenly the TV's around us began to go crazy and I was relived when I realized it wasn't me causing the disturbance but the Voice of Survival.

Something about the guy rubbed me the wrong way. Zeke said it was because he was a hipster, whatever that was, but for me, it just felt like he was a nobody who accidentally became somebody and was trying _way_ to hard to stay a somebody. When I told this to Zeke, he just said, 'yup, that's a hipster.' Whatever, so I don't like him because he's a hipster. But soon I had a much better reason for not liking him.

"Take a look at this Empire City, the photo you're seeing was taken by security camera near ground zero."

"Hey, Cole! Look! You're on the big screen!" Zeke yelled, excited for me. However, I was pretty sure he was the only one feeling good about me being up on the TV in that moment.

"Someone from your family die?" the man who had been talking continued. "Well, now you know who to blame." There was more, but I couldn't hear it. I was numb. I felt light headed until I realized it was because I wasn't breathing. I gasped in a breath waking myself up to my surroundings. That was when I noticed the group of people around me wasn't looking so friendly any more. Even Zeke was giving me a strange glance. But what he was feeling was nothing compared to the one opinion that truly mattered to me. However, that one person, I couldn't see them no matter where I looked.

"Uh," Zeke began getting my attention over the rising volume of the people around me. "We should probably get out of here. Meet me by Stampton Bridge when it's cooled down enough." I just nodded in the affirmative and ran. I wasn't even sure if it was the right direction. In my rush, I caught a glimpse of the kid I had given my beans to. His face showed confusion, shifting from me to the food in his hand. I didn't stick around to see what he would do. I needed to get out of here. With a start, I realized that I had been shot earlier. But when I looked down at the wound, all I found was a hole in my pants and some dried blood. A mystery for a later time, for now, I could only be happy I wasn't limping away from an angry mob.

 **AN: So, quite the pause on the upload, I know. Sorry about that. It's probably going to be like this until CoTS gets done, which, maybe sooner rather than later. Anyways, let me know what you think. Thanks so far for the support you've shown thus far. I hope I can continue to please. Oh, also, have you begun to pick up on what I'm doing? If not, that's okay, it's pretty subtle right now, but should be more noticeable in the next chapter.**


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